{"id":171468,"date":"2025-09-26T21:24:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T21:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/171468\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T21:24:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T21:24:06","slug":"fleury-thrilled-to-finish-where-everything-started-with-penguins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/171468\/","title":{"rendered":"Fleury thrilled ‘to finish where everything started’ with Penguins"},"content":{"rendered":"

He took the crease eventually, facing shots from Crosby, Letang and forward Bryan Rust<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat might be what I loved the most,\u201d Fleury said, \u201cjust being on the ice and have a lot of shots, see the guys a bunch, be able to chirp a bit here and there. That’s a lot of fun for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crosby scored on his second attempt, with Fleury looking to the rafters, his customary wry smile visible through the bars of his mask. Crosby laughed in the right face-off circle, then had his next few shots turned away — one with Fleury windmilling in the crease.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one where I batted it out of the air and scored, that\u2019s the one you\u2019re talking about?\u201d Crosby said, chuckling. \u201cYeah, it was a good initial save, for sure. Yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every little thing Fleury did got a reaction — taking the crease and leaving it, making a save and letting in a goal.<\/p>\n

It was a reception earned long ago. The No. 1 pick in the 2003 NHL Draft, Fleury won the Stanley Cup three times (2009, 2016, 2017) before being selected by the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft.<\/p>\n

Mike Sullivan, now coach of the New York Rangers, was Fleury\u2019s coach for the last two championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just represents everything that makes us proud to be associated with the game,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great person. He\u2019s a fierce competitor. And he loves hockey. I don\u2019t think you play as long as \u2018Flower\u2019 did and play in as many games as he has if you don\u2019t love the game. His energy is so contagious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleury is 575-339-95 with two ties in 1,051 games, with the second-most wins and games played by a goalie in NHL history behind Martin Brodeur (691 wins, 1,266 games).<\/p>\n

Fleury has the most wins (375) and games played (691) on Pittsburgh’s all-time list. His 2.58 goals-against average is the lowest in its history and his .912 save percentage is tied for second (minimum 100 games played) with Casey DeSmith<\/a>, behind Matt Murray<\/a> (.914).<\/p>\n

Crosby, Malkin and Letang are the Penguins’ core three. It was once four. Fleury was the foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was here before us,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cHe had some, at least a year there, where it was a struggle. I remember, early on, he was getting 40, 50 shots, playing unbelievable. We couldn\u2019t get wins for him. It was tough. He couldn\u2019t get shutouts. It was the hardest thing. He\u2019d have a shutout for, like, 57 minutes and then let one in, it was crazy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how many shutouts he has, but he should have, like, 15 to 20 more. He just had those nights where he just took over.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He took the crease eventually, facing shots from Crosby, Letang and forward Bryan Rust. \u201cThat might be what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-171468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}